Decision
Mr X and Coillte
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Case number: OCE-150262-X0F4P5
Published on
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Case number: OCE-150262-X0F4P5
Published on
Whether Coillte holds further information relevant to the appellant’s request with regard to article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations.
15 October 2025
1. This case relates to a previous appeal to this Office, reference OCE-138537-F2P0Z7
2. The previous appeal formed part of a batch decision by this Office, wherein 12 appeals concerning Coillte were examined.
3. On 14 March 2023, the appellant had submitted a request to Coillte seeking access to:
1. “A copy of Coillte’s Silt and Sediment Mitigation Guideline compiled in response to the Major CAR at Corrahoash, Co. Cavan
EMS_GUI_021_Silt & Sediment Mitigation Guidelines_20112022_FINAL
2. Information on all roll-out training provided by the Environment Team in conjunction with the Team Leads from Estates/Engineering, Establishment and Harvesting to Forest Operational Staff and Contractors in response to the Major CAR at Corrahoash, Co. Cavan”
4. On 13 April 2023, Coillte issued its original decision on the appellant’s request. Coillte’s decision set out that records had been identified relevant to the appellant’s request but Coillte was refusing access to the records “having regard to the provisions of Articles 9(1)(b), 9(2)(c) and 8(1)(iv) of the AIE Regulations”.
5. The appellant sought an internal review of Coillte’s decision on the same day, contending that the grounds for refusal were not justified and that no application of article 10(5) had been considered. Coillte’s internal review decision of 12 May 2023 affirmed the decision of the original decision maker.
6. On 22 May 2023, the appellant submitted an appeal to this Office of Coillte’s decision dated 12 May 2023, appeal reference OCE-138537-F2P0Z7. The scope of that review concerned whether Coillte held information relevant to the appellant’s request and whether Coillte was justified in withholding information from the appellant. As mentioned above, the previous appeal was part of a batch decision issued by this Office.
7. In the batch decision of 28 March 2024, the common thread which all cases shared was the relevance of the requested environmental information in each appeal to the authority’s participation in an audit process which was being carried out at the time of the appeal requests. For some additional context, Coillte had broadly refused the information requested under a number of articles, mainly (but not restricted to) article 9(1)(b), 9(2)(c) and 8(a)(iv). The decision annulled the internal review decision of Coillte in all 12 appeals and directed Coillte to carry out a new internal review process in respect of each request. In doing so, I included the following comments:
“11. It is the opinion of this Office that Coillte has failed to provide adequate reasoning as to how the release of the requested information in these appeals may negatively impact its involvement in the aforementioned audit process and to justify this with regard to the provisions of the AIE Regulations. With reference to Coillte`s refusal to release a number of documents where it considers those documents to be in the course of completion, and given the passage of time since these decisions were made, it appears that many of these records may now be complete and therefore available for release.
[…]
13. Following this Office’s initial examination of the case files, in each instance it appeared certain that following a full investigation of all of the circumstances of the appeal that the decisions of Coillte would be annulled and the request remitted. As many of the records in question contain third party information, where the third parties have not been consulted in relation to its release, this Office does not deem it appropriate to direct the release of this information.
14. Having reached this preliminary conclusion, this Office’s investigator contacted Coillte to explore if an informal decision could be reached to facilitate a review of these cases by the authority. In an effort to bring these cases to a timely conclusion Coillte has agreed to re-examine each case, without prejudice to its previous decision making process, within this Decision to bring them to a satisfactory conclusion preferably with an informal resolution where appropriate. As with previous batch decisions, this Office is cognisant of the additional workload placed on Coillte by this approach and appreciates Coillte for agreeing to review these cases in this manner.”
8. On 27 June 2024, Coillte issued its new internal review decision. Coillte varied the decision of the initial decision maker and set out the following:
“It is my decision to vary the decision of the first instance decision maker which was to refuse the Request having regard to the provisions of articles 9(1)(b), 9(2)(c) and 8(a)(iv) of the AIE Regulations. I have decided that, because the original Request was submitted to our offices on 14.03.2023, given the passage of time and allowing for the fact that processes which affected the 1st decision are now complete, access to records relating to the request should be granted because, on this date, articles 9(1)(b), 9(2)(c) and 8(a)(iv) are no longer applicable. I am granting access to information relating to the request”.
Coillte also provided two documents to the appellant with its decision.
9. On 4 July 2024, the appellant submitted an appeal to this Office of the Department’s decision dated 27 June 2024, appeal reference OCE-150262-X0F4P5.
10. I am directed by the Commissioner to carry out a review under article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations. In so doing, I have had regard to the correspondence between the Department and the appellant as outlined above and to correspondence between my Office and both the Department and the appellant on the matter. In addition, I have had regard to:
• the Guidance document provided by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government on the implementation of the AIE Regulations (the Minister’s Guidance);
• Directive 2003/4/EC (the AIE Directive), upon which the AIE Regulations are based;
• the 1998 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention); and
• The Aarhus Convention—An Implementation Guide (Second edition, June 2014) (the Aarhus Guide)
11. What follows does not comment or make findings on each and every argument advanced but all relevant points have been considered.
12. In accordance with article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, my role is to review the public authority’s internal review decision and to affirm, annul or vary it. Where appropriate in the circumstances of an appeal, I will require the public authority to make available environmental information to the appellant.
13. The scope of this review is to determine whether Coillte was justified in refusing access to the requested information under article 7(5) of the AIE regulations on the grounds that no further information relevant to the request is held by Coillte.
14. In his statement of appeal to this Office dated 4 July 2024, the appellant included the following comments:
“The record provided in response to Item 2 of my request does not include information on the roll out training which was supposed to occur within a three month period. The record provided refers to the training as a future event/s. I would have expected to receive details of the actual training provided by Coillte, the dates, the locations, the attendees. I would have expected to receive information on the course materials for the training, hand outs, presentations, etc. None of this has been provided. Coillte has provided information on the proposal to carry out training, not on the training itself. Therefore my request has not been properly addressed.
The record provided is entitled “20240101 - CAR 2022.05 Training Plan”. My request is for more than information on the plan to carry out training. It is for information on the content of the training and related information.”
15. In addition to the above the appellant contended that all information falling within the scope of his request was not identified and also noted his view that Coillte failed to demonstrate that all reasonable steps have been taken to identify the full suite of records covered by his request.
16. Coillte provided a submission in this case on 13 September 2024 which included the following:
• Coillte submitted that the appellant’s request was submitted by the appellant to Coillte on 14 March 2023, prior to an Audit of the Soil Association (the “SA”) where the SA auditors would review the close-out plans of non-compliances noted in the previous year’s audit, and if satisfied formally close out such complaints.
• Coillte submitted that this review took place after the date of the appellant’s request. It included the Major CAR referred to by the appellant in the request. Coillte outlined that the record provided to the appellant in response to Part 2 of the request set out Coillte’s close out plan for review by the SA Auditors at the Audit which took place after the date of the request.
• Coillte submitted that the record contains details of planned contractor training relating to silt and sediment mitigation to address the issues identified by the SA Auditors in the 2022 Audit. Coillte noted that this contractor training was carried out by Coillte in Q3 of 2023, after the 2023 Audit when the plan was reviewed by SA Auditors. Coillte further added that the training was carried out after the date of the request therefore any records on the subject matter of the roll out of the training are not within the scope of the request.
17. Also within Coillte’s submission of 13 September 2024, Coillte identified searches which were carried out to identify environmental information relevant to the request. In doing so, Coillte noted the following:
• Coillte submitted that searches were carried out by Coillte’s Head of Certification, Environment and QA and Coillte’s QA and Certification Specialist as Subject Matter Experts (“SME”). Coillte outlined that they carried out searches at the time of the request of 14 March 2023. In addition, Coillte added that further searches were carried out by the SMEs for the purpose of the fresh internal review decision. Coillte submitted that searches were carried out on outlook, cloud-based storage, Coillte’s certification database, using key words and key phrases “Silt and Sediment Mitigation”, “Contractor Training”, “Corrahoash”. Coillte submitted that following searches, and also with the knowledge and expertise of the SMEs, who are the Lead Certification Team members for the purpose of coordinating Audit close-out plans of non-compliances notified by the SA, it was confirmed that no further environmental information existed within the scope of the request, that is for the period up to and including 14 March 2023. Coillte further noted that the SMEs worked collaboratively in carrying out the searches.
• Coillte’s submission also suggested that the Appellant make a new AIE request for contractor training, on the relevant subject matter, which may have been carried out after the date of the request.
18. In this case, the appellant contends that Coillte should hold further information relevant to his request. Article 7(1) of the AIE Regulations requires public authorities to make available environmental information that is held by or for them on request. Article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations is the relevant provision to consider where the question arises as to whether the requested environmental information is held by or for the public authority concerned. It provides as follows;
“Where a request is made to a public authority and the information requested is not held by or for the authority concerned, that authority shall inform the applicant as soon as possible that the information is not held by or for it”.
19. In order for article 7(5) to apply, this Office must be satisfied that Coillte has taken adequate steps to identify and locate all relevant environmental held by it. This Office’s approach to dealing with this type of case is to assess whether adequate steps have been taken to identify and locate relevant environmental information, having regard to the particular circumstances. In determining whether the steps taken are adequate in the circumstances, a standard of reasonableness is applied.
20. What will be considered reasonable will vary from case to case, but as a general guide, I set out below the type of information that my Office would generally expect to be set out in a decision where a public authority is relying on article 7(5) of the regulations:
(i) an outline of exactly which areas/units etc. of the organisation were searched for the information;
(ii) an explanation of how searches were carried out (i.e. manually, by computer, by name, by key words). Keywords should be recorded and provided in the decision as appropriate;
(iii) details of the individuals consulted in connection with the search;
(iv) a description of the searches carried out to cover the possibility of misfiled/misplaced records;
(v) details of guidelines, practices, procedures and arrangements in relation to the storage, filing, archiving, retention and destruction of the type of information requested in this case;
(vi) the basis on which the public authority has concluded that it does not hold any information within the scope of the appellant’s request and that no such information is held by any other person or body on its behalf.
21. It is important to note that where a public authority refuses a request for records under article 7(5) of the AIE regulations, the question we must consider is whether the public authority has taken all reasonable steps to ascertain the whereabouts of relevant records. The regulations do not require absolute certainty as to the existence or location of records, as situations arise where records are lost or simply cannot be found, or, indeed, may have been destroyed in line with the body’s records management policies. It is also important to note that we do not generally expect public authorities to carry out extensive or indefinite general searches for records simply because an appellant asserts that more records should or might exist or rejects a public authorities explanation of why a record does not exist. The test in article 7(5) is whether the public authority has taken all reasonable steps to locate the record sought.
22. During the course of this investigation the appellant was provided with a copy of Coillte’s submission for comment and any additional comments he wished to provide for consideration in the appeal.
23. In response, the appellant submitted that the corrective action was required to be completed by 23 November 2022 and set out his view that any information generated prior to his request also falls within its scope. The appellant also set out information which was provided by Coillte to their auditors in relation to the roll-out training to close off the Major CAR, which indicated that"This training will be provided by the Environment Team in conjunction with the Team Leads from Estates/Engineering, Establishment and Harvesting".
24. In addition, the appellant’s submissions included the following:
“My appeal is confined to Coillte’s failure to provide information related to Item 3 of the Corrective Action Request (CAR). It is not the date of the training per se that is critical, it is whether any information related to the training was generated before my request was submitted. The training may have been a future event but the idea of the training as a means of addressing the CAR and the initial structure and planning of the training must have occurred in advance of the training and must to some extent have been discussed before my request was made”.
25. Regarding the searches carried out by Coillte for any further information, I find that Coillte have adequately set out its reasons for the non-existence of any further information, taking into account the searches which were carried out by the SMEs for the purpose of the fresh internal review decision.
26. I have also considered that the appellant was provided with a Training Plan by Coillte following its new internal review, and noted in his statement of appeal that “Coillte has provided information on the proposal to carry out training, not on the training itself”. The appellant also later submitted that “the corrective action was required to be completed by 23 November 2022”. I wish to note here that my role is to review the public authority’s internal review decision and to affirm, annul or vary it in accordance with the AIE Regulations. It is not within my remit to comment on how public authorities carry out their functions.
27. As set out above, Coillte noted that this contractor training was carried out by Coillte in Q3 of 2023, after the 2023 Audit when the plan was reviewed by SA Auditors. Accordingly, I agree with Coillte’s suggestion that the appellant could now submit a new AIE request for information regarding contractor training which took place at a later date, which is outside the scope of this request.
28. I am satisfied that Coillte has taken sufficient steps to determine that it does not hold further environmental information relevant to the appellant’s request. For the sake of completeness, I note that the appellant has the option to submit a fresh request for information beyond the scope of his original request should he wish to do so.
29. Having carried out a review under article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, on behalf of the Commissioner for Environmental Information, I hereby affirm the decision of Coillte.
30. A party to the appeal or any other person affected by this decision may appeal to the High Court on a point of law from the decision. Such an appeal must be initiated not later than two months after notice of the decision was given to the person bringing the appeal.
Julie O’Leary
on behalf of the Commissioner for Environmental Information